Puerto Rico: Statehood controversial, emotional

Keila Torres Ocasio

Updated 10:19 pm, Saturday, May 25, 2013

When Rosa Correa became gravely ill several years ago, the Bridgeport activist feared her life would end before her dream could come true.

"I told my husband, `I'm going to die and not see Puerto Rico become a state.' A more logical thought would have been, `I won't see my grandchildren get married,' " Correa said with a laugh the other day.

Correa came to the United States in 1988. And yet, her passion about whether the Caribbean island should remain a U.S. commonwealth or become the 51st state may seem dramatic to those who are not Puerto Rican natives.

Consider: More than 252,000 people in Connecticut identified themselves as Puerto Ricans in the 2010 U.S. Census. And nearly half of those people lived in Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury.

In Bridgeport alone, Puerto Ricans comprise about 22 percent of the city's population. Many of these residents are keenly aware of the island's politics.

The statehood issue has been a controversial and emotional one in Puerto Rico for decades.

And now, because Puerto Rico's top elected officials are just as passionate -- and divided -- as their constituents on statehood, both the Caribbean island's U.S. representative and the White House have asked Congress to approve a federally backed referendum on the issue.

In a bill to be presented this week, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, the island's non-voting representative in Congress, will call for a ratified vote to ask Puerto Ricans whether they want the island to remain a U.S. commonwealth or become the nation's 51st state.

It would be the fifth plebiscite since 1967. The last one, which took place in November, marked the first time the majority of Puerto Ricans voted in favor of changing the island's commonwealth status.

But while 54 percent -- or 900,000 people -- voted to change the status quo, nearly 500,000 people skipped the second question on the ballot, which asked for their choice among statehood, independence or sovereign-free association.

Of those who did vote on the second question, 61 percent chose statehood.

In that same election, Puerto Ricans re-elected Pierluisi, who is pro-statehood. Voters also elected a new governor, Democrat Alejandro Garcia Padilla, who is against statehood and the Pierluisi bill.

"Puerto Ricans have been voting for this and have been trying to pass this for a long time," said Maria Valle, vice president of the Puerto Rican Parade of Fairfield County Inc., which is based in Bridgeport. "If the people keep turning it down, it's for a reason."

However, sometime in the next few weeks, the House Appropriations Committee is expected to debate a $2.5 million request by the White House to back the first U.S.-financed vote.

"I believe that it is up to the people of Puerto Rico and to no one else to determine what their status should be," said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, "and I would support funding for a fair process to allow them to make that determination."

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, also expressed support for a referendum, but stopped short of supporting funding for that purpose.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he has talked to Pierluisi about the possibility of working together on a bill that would be presented in the Senate.

"I'm inclined to support a vote by the people of Puerto Rico as a vote for their voices to be heard," Blumenthal said. "The question is when it would be conducted and the effect it would have."

But Raul Ruiz, a Bridgeport resident and member of the Puerto Rican Parade's board, said not being a state of the U.S. does affect Puerto Ricans here. He said they are often treated like second-class citizens, even though they are born American citizens.

"Even if we're born in the mountains of Puerto Rico, we are American," said Ruiz, who came to the U.S. as a teenager nearly 40 years ago. "We don't get credit for that."

"Their blood alone should be the reason why we should have statehood," she said. "It's a moral issue that we still have a colony in the 21st century. For me, there is no other possibility but statehood."

Until then, Correa will continue to wear a star pin on her lapel, a symbol of what she calls the American flag's missing star.